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Fragmented Realities – Searching for a Common Understanding of Truth

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Fragmented Realities – Searching for a Common Understanding of Truth Fragmented Realities – Searching for a Common Understanding of Truth Jörg Habich | Verena Nowotny Introduction The search for truth by means of discussions and arguments has always been a constituent part of human interaction. At least since the era of the Enlightenment, it has become the bedrock of society. With the proposal to let the most convincing argument achieve the status of “truth,” society decided to end the tyranny of the strongest. Realities were no longer dictated by those commanding the largest army or holding the longest sword, but were determined by those possessing the most logical argument and utilizing the latest scientific methods.1 Since then, day-by-day as well as far-reaching decisions have been based on data, facts and figures in business, culture and politics. Decision makers rely on scientific evidence and argumentation that created a common ground: It has been the assumption of an abstract common “knowledge space” that exists between communication partners – the general agreement on objective facts and scientific proof. The basic model is simple: Fact-based experience or the best available evidence-based knowledge leads to most valid decisions. The irrational alternative includes opinion, hearsay, rhetoric, discourse, advice, self-deception, bias, belief, fallacy, or advocacy – in the extreme case, dogma and lies. As a result, the best basis for decision-making is simply the truth about a situation, an issue, a case, etc. If the truth is unknown, the second-best option is the information that approximates the truth, which is provided by scientific proof, empiricism, etc. Nevertheless, what happens if there is no common understanding of truth anymore? Or if parts of a society, company or group do not believe in facts or scientific proof anymore? Or if they deny the perceptions of reality or if they insist on different or “parallel” realities? Therefore, what we call reality can be fragmented and thus offer alternative perspectives for consideration, reflection or effect. Alternatively, Fragmented Realities may focus on different details of a reality. Fragmented Realities . are fragmented and therefore divided, existing in separate parts or views, and . are also real because they are the sum or aggregate of all that is real or existent, as opposed to that which is merely imaginary or an illusion or an idealistic or notional idea thereof. In Fragmented Realities, the consensus about a fact-based reality grows weaker. They can be enhanced by digitalization, for example through Augmented Realities in which objects are an interactive experience and the user’s real-world environment is replaced by a simulated one, where different realities exist. But is there still one existent truth if realities are fragmented? Could truth also be fragmented? Do scientific proof, reality, and truth not demand a link? Truth can be subjective or relative – but is absolute, objective reality not a prerequisite for daily business in the political, economic and cultural spheres? Do we not need a common perception of reality and a common understanding of truth? 1 Szalay, Jessie. What was the Enlightenment? https://www.livescience.com/55327-the-enlightenment.html [retrieved July 31, 2019]. Reality and Truth 1. Reality Throughout history, the relationship between truth and reality has always been the main focus of philosophy. Depending on someone’s philosophical preferences reality could be . something imagined or an illusion (constructivism) or the total opposite . the sum or aggregate of all that is real or existent (realism). For (radical) constructivists, reality is a construction. The perceived environment is an illusion.2 Consequently, this epistemology implies different fragmentations between persons. The main question for realists is whether reality is recognizable. The practical significance lies in the fact that it is not possible to make unquestionably true statements about things or facts without the assumption of a reality. In order to make statements about reality, one must first recognize them, that is, be able to perceive them. The main epistemological question seems to be whether an objective reality exists. Objective reality is that which exists outside of perception and independent of the mind.3 Conversely, subjective reality is dependent on a person’s individual perceptions, mind-set, experiences, etc. Everyone perceives his or her environment in a different manner and therefore lives in one’s own reality. It is necessary to grasp this reality correctly in order to be able to understand causes, ulterior motives and actions and to avoid misinterpretations. Only if the observer correctly interprets the intended action, a successful communication becomes possible. The importance of this rather simple insight becomes evident in countless misunderstandings that we observe in exchanges within companies, between countries, or within families and circles of friends. 2. Truth The correspondence of statements or judgments to a fact, case, or reality in the sense of correct reproduction is commonly referred to as truth. This common ground seems to be challenged nowadays. In particular, critics are questioning the connection between empiricism and truth; they are denying the link between knowledge from sensory experience like observation and an existing objective knowledge. The meaning of truth has been widely discussed by academics. This is not meant to lead to an academic discussion of whether, for example, truth corresponds to the facts and whether an interpretation of facts is correct or not. It is neither a philosophical or epistemological question (see Figure “Different Conceptions of Truth”) nor the question of whether someone is a rationalist, a constructivist, or a realist. Even if various theories and views of truth continue to be debated among scholars, philosophers, and theologians,4 there is a common understanding that truth is the opposite of falsehood, falseness, falsity, untruth, fabrication, or fiction. 2 Watzlawick, Paul (ed.). Die erfundene Wirklichkeit. Wie wissen wir, was wir zu wissen glauben? Beiträge zum Konstruktivismus. Munich: Pieper Verlag, 1981. 3 Logino, Helen E. Values and objectivity. In: Curd, Martin. Jan A. Cover (ed.). Philosophy of science: The central issues. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1998, p. 170-191. 4 Burgess, Alexis G. and John P. Burgess. A concise introduction to current philosophical debates about truth. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011. At least hundreds of years before the era of the Enlightenment, famous philosophers like Socrates and Plato identified dialectics as a method to establish truth by the exchange of reasoned arguments. In their opinion, it was the conversation between thesis and anti-thesis that would bring humanity closer towards the truth.5 A decisive characteristic of their idea of the scientific method was that competition for truth was always a competition between ideas of the one truth. This linear pathway was headed in a clear direction: absolute and objective truth. Ideas of reality compete, therefore society gets closer and closer to the one, objective reality. It allows us to find out who is right and whose ideas are obsolete (see Figure “Absolute Truth”). While most scientists and philosophers accept that absolute truth is unobtainable, there has been intense debate about exactly what constitutes proof. 5 Popper, Karl R. Conjectures and refutations: The growth of scientific knowledge. New York: Harper & Row, 1968. If you believe in truth,6 reality and truth are independent of the subject. With reference to Max Weber it is called “verstehen”7 or intersubjectivity. This intersubjectivity refers to the common understanding, the shared meanings constructed by people in their interactions with each other and used as an everyday resource to interpret the meaning of elements of social and cultural life.8 If people share a common understanding, then they share a definition of the situation. 3. Someone’s Reality vs. Objective Truth Something that is perceived as truth by one person could be a “lie” to another person. That means that someone’s sensory input, which transforms a stimulus, and her or his identification with and interpretation of this sensory information in order to represent and understand the situation, or the environment, determine whether something is accepted as truth.9 While from one perspective (perception) a cone (objective truth) throws a shadow of a triangle on the wall, the same cone throws a circular area on the wall from another perspective (perception). Therefore, circle and triangle both are true (see Figure “Someone’s Reality”). 6 For epistemological nihilism, see: Woodward, Ashley. Nihilism and the postmodern in Vattimo’s Nietzsche. In: Minerva – An Internet Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 6, 2002. 7 Weber, Max. The theory of social and economic organization. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1947, p. 88. 8 Seale, Clive. Researching society and culture, 3rd Ed. London: Sage, 2012, p. 574. 9 Schacter, Daniel, Daniel T. Gilbert, and Daniel M. Wegner. Psychology, 2nd Ed. New York: Worth Publishers, 2011. Bernstein, Douglas A. and Peggy W. Nash. Essentials of psychology, 4th Ed. Boston/New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008, p. 112–126. This implies if one truth (absolute and independent of an individual) exists, at the same time different Fragmented Realities (something that someone declares as true) exist, and those form different realities (environments) in turn. Truth becomes context-dependent. Searching for a Common
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